


Anniversary

by charmandhex



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: And gremlin brain demanded angst, F/M, Fighting, Magnus has some bad coping mechanisms, Mostly just mourning and trying to make his way through, Neither in great detail, Okay someone was talking about how Magnus and Julia were only married for three months, So this deals with Julia's death in non graphic detail, Specifically focused around their anniversary if it wasn't apparent from the title, alcohol use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 02:52:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15698640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charmandhex/pseuds/charmandhex
Summary: Magnus and Julia were married for three months. Love didn’t stop there.





	Anniversary

            Magnus Burnsides proposes to Julia Waxmen the moment the last battle is over and the rebellion is victorious, and half a minute behind Julia’s own proposal. Magnus Burnsides marries Julia Waxmen on a beautiful spring day in Raven’s Roost, the kind of day that sings of days to come and promises in whispers a happy future well-earned. Magnus Burnsides kisses Julia Waxmen-Burnsides in a gazebo he’d built himself, moving impossibly quickly to ready it for the wedding but also with the utmost attention to make everything absolutely perfect for the happiest day of his life.

            Magnus Burnsides is a widower three months later.

 

Paper

 

            The first anniversary is paper. Magnus Burnsides doesn’t know where his marriage license is. It had been at home, with Julia, and had been lost with her. He can’t even prove, legally, that the woman he loves and ever will, was the one he had promised to spend the rest of his life with.

            Which is probably why, the night before, Magnus Burnsides gets blindingly drunk, into a particularly vicious brawl, and thrown out of the tavern all in quick succession. When he wakes up, woken by the first rays of the sun on a day that should have been exquisitely happy and a pounding headache from his futile attempt to forget, he stands up and walks away.

            He cleans himself up, alone.

            He walks to another tavern, alone.

            He tends to one black eye, alone.

            He eats, alone.

            He sits, alone, in a small bedroom in a small inn, about as far away from his home in Raven’s Roost as he can imagine.

            Magnus Burnsides holds the pen above the paper, pausing before the pen brushes the surface. Ink slowly beads at the tip of the pen as Magnus considers. This is the sort of thing that Magnus has never been the best at. The ink drips onto the paper, leaving a splotch. Another. But it’s for Julia. The words, however clumsy and clumsily formed, flow easily as Magnus starts writing, the small cramped room silent save for sounds emanating up from the tavern below through the floorboards and the steady scratching sounds of pen against paper. Magnus writes a letter to Julia, a small amount of ink giving voice to a tidal wave of love and pain.

            He loves her, he misses her, he loves her so much.

            He leaves the next day, alone.

 

Cotton

 

            The second anniversary is cotton. Cotton, like the bright red bandana that Magnus wears around his neck, that selfsame bandana that Julia had always used to tie her hair back, keep it out of her face as she focused on work, be it iron and tools or rebellion and planning.

            Magnus never knew where she got the fabric from; it always slipped his mind to ask. He would have given her a whole robe like that had he known, if he could now. If there had ever been more than scraps though, that fabric is gone, just like the marriage license, and just like Julia.

            A woman, pretty, young, with a particular look in her eyes makes to grab the bandana around his neck, to try to grab the attention of the man sitting quietly and alone, this year refusing to forget. He jumps back as if stung, hand going protectively to the fabric.

            Her husband objects to this, both to her attention and to Magnus’s reaction. He hadn’t, in truth, been looking for a fight this year, but he finds one anyway. Before tending to himself, Magnus carefully washes the blood out of the bandana, determined to keep the darker red from drying to brown and marring the bright color.

            He cleans the bandana, alone.

            He clean the rest of his clothes, alone.

            He sleeps, alone.

           

Leather

 

            The third anniversary is leather. They’d worn leather aprons working in Hammer and Tongs. Even now, if Magnus closes his eyes, he could tell you every detail about that building: the order of the tools as they hung on the walls, the one spot on the stairs leading up to the next floor that would squawk like a bird if you stepped on it wrong, the way he could always find a way to see Julia out of the corner of his eye, no matter where he worked in the space.

            Magnus has no need for leather aprons now. He’s an adventurer now, and that requires tools like battleaxes, swords, bows. He scarcely works as a carpenter now, barely works with wood at all save to carve ducks when the thoughts in his head are too loud and he feels as though all that he is might fly out of his skin if he tries to hold still. Keeping his hands busy is crucial to moving forward when Magnus Burnsides has no one to protect.

            He spends the day working with wood regardless. Resin stains his skin, wood shavings hook into his clothes and cling.

            He works, alone.

            He washes the marks from his skin, shakes the wood from his clothes, alone.

            He gifts the chair to a young, recently married couple, alone.

            Magnus purchases a shield.

 

Flowers

 

            The fourth anniversary is flowers. Julia had liked flowers, all the different meanings and uses. Magnus can’t remember the meanings as Julia had; he’d never committed them to memory. It doesn’t matter, when the smell of lavender alone is enough to drive him from every florist he dares visit. Smells like grandmas, like chairs, like memories.

            Before he flees each and every shop, he learns a few things.

            Red roses, like the bandana, love.

            Daisies, like those that had grown wild on Raven’s Roost, loyalty.

            Lavender, like the chair he’d left Raven’s Roost with, solitude.

            Marigold, like the setting sun signaling the end of this day, grief.

            Magnus walks blindly, continues onward, has to find a job, has to find something to do, can’t sit still and think about what could have been, what should have been, what he would give anything for.

            He leaves every shop, alone.

            He leaves the town, alone.

            Soon, he finds a new job, alone.

            He’s not alone for much longer.

 

Wood

 

            The fifth anniversary is wood. Five years since Magnus promised Julia forever and she the same to him. And four years, nine months since life had made liars of them. Had things been different, he would have, could have given her everything, made by his own two hands, so much that she would have just stopped and laughed and laughed. It’s Magnus’s favorite sound in the world, and that alone would have been a perfect gift in return.

            A few months prior, after gambling with the Grim Reaper, Magnus had also asked a favor of him. A reminder for Julia, that he loves her. It’s small, something he’s done hundreds if not thousands of times before, something he had done each and every day almost as long as he’d known her. And it’s more than he’s been able to give her in years.

            But on this day, on his anniversary, Magnus is watching himself. Himself and Julia, four years, nine months prior. Magnus, younger, less scarred, hope and joy in his eyes. Julia, vibrant, alive, with that same look mirrored in her own eyes. The memory playing out in front of him tears open old scars both precisely and brutally, leaving the pain just as overwhelming as it had been the first time. In the middle of a desert, Magnus is drowning.

            He wants it. He wants that happiness. He wants it so desperately that he’s willing to burn the world to get it. But Julia wouldn’t be happy. Julia wouldn’t want that, no matter how much Magnus knows that she wanted that life they saw spread out before them, just as much as he wants it still.

            On his fifth wedding anniversary, Magnus Burnsides remains a widower.

 

Iron

 

            The sixth anniversary is iron. Iron, like Julia and Steven had worked on a daily basis. Iron, like Julia herself. Iron, like the strength Magnus had relied on when he had outrun the apocalypse for a century, when he had fought back against the end of everything and won.

            Iron, like the tools and the will he is using to rebuild Raven’s Roost. Not alone. He has help from family, friends, a puppy named Johann running around and barking eagerly.

            On his sixth anniversary, on a beautiful spring day in Raven’s Roost, Magnus Burnsides once again looks to the future with hope.

 

Gold

 

            Magnus isn’t usually alone on anniversaries anymore. His family won’t let it happen. He spends the days with Taako and Kravitz, Merle and his kids, Carey and Killian, Lup and Barry, Angus, Davenport, Lucretia, Avi, Hurley and Sloane, even a god or two on a few memorable occasions. More often than not, all of them, together. That’s good, too. Magnus usually plans those parties, or tells Carey or Taako or Lup that he’d like to have a party. They’re good at making a plan and an elaborate party out of that. It lets Magnus remember Julia. It keeps him from being alone.

            Kravitz, Lup, and Barry are helpful, too. They’re busy, naturally, because, as Magnus well knows, life and death ever move onward. But they send messages, a dam broken after that Candlenights where Magnus had asked a favor of the Grim Reaper. They bring messages, too, sometimes. Always a reminder not to come too soon.

            The seventy-fifth anniversary is gold. Gold, like the wedding band Magnus has worn all these years, through fights and protecting, joy and sorrow. Magnus wears it as he lives and as he dies.

            On their seventy-fifth anniversary, Magnus sees Julia again.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there!
> 
> Yeah... sorry? I feel like I should apologize for this one.
> 
> And yes, I did throw this together in a few hours rather than working on other existing projects. It's fine. I'm fine. There are so many stories to write.
> 
> As always, to leave a message after the beep, head to [charmandhex](https://charmandhex.tumblr.com).


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